Chain Reaction
by PerfectlyPsychotic
Summary: Jimmy sets off a chain reaction when he and Cindy are 14, now 2 years later, he's got to keep her from spiraling out of control. She would go completely insane before he would figure out what he had to do.
1. Chapter 1 Sweet Dreams Vortex

Retroville was just a small town, where kids followed a routine. School, candy bar with friends, or home to do homework. A town small enough that most people just walked where they needed to go. There was nothing unnatural about the town except for what Jimmy brought around. He hadn't expected to be the only one causing abnormal adventure and supernatural phenomenon. Then again when it came to him and Cindy Vortex, nothing was ever scientifically correct. She began to spiral downwards, out of control almost, and for some reason she was disconnected from the only people likely to help. The further she spiraled the more she pushed everyone away, Libby, her parents, her aunt. Everyone except Jimmy, she didn't know why she only kept him around, why she felt the need to do incredible things when he was around was beyond her. Maybe it all started on a that rainy day years ago, that stormy night that intruded on Cindy's downward depression, and spun her all the way around.

It was the middle of fall and droplets had been coming down for a good 2 hours, just light sprinkles, but now at 8:14pm Jimmy looked out the window and it was pouring. He'd just been at the library a little bit ago, when it was just a drizzle, and taken his hover car home when he predicted worse weather. From his view at the window he could see Cindy running down the sidewalk, clutching her school books to her chest to keep them from the rain.

Ah, 14 year old Cindy Vortex, what a thing of beauty. Jimmy had long since admitted his crush on her to his friends, but couldn't bring terms to admit it to her. He admired her in a hurry to get home and felt a little bad, she was at the library just two tables away, he should have offered her a ride home if he knew the rain would get this bad. She looked cold running with only a light jacket, and jeans sticking to her long legs. In her years growing older, she shot up a few inches, and her once shoulder length blonde hair was flowing well down her back, with her ever-so-cindy bangs that swirled around her forehead like she'd had when she was younger. normally it was pulled back into a tight perfect pony tail, but the constant downpour seemed to have weighed it down and the running cause it to become floppy and tangled. It was cold enough to see her breath as she ran, and her cheeks and nose rosied from as well. Her beautiful green eyes began to well with tears from the icy wind.

She was almost home as her tennis shoes splashed puddle to puddle, and the dark made it difficult to see in front of her, with that just a few feet from her property line, she tripped on uneven sidewalk, and she sprawled to the hard wet ground. From his window Jimmy

watched her dive to the ground, and fall face first, with books thrown and scattered in puddles. "oh Crap." Instantly Jimmy was out of his desk seat, sprinting down his steps and jumping from the last three, he was out the door and into the rain before Cindy even had time to realize she'd fallen.

After a second of two she opened her eyes and looked around, her clothes were soaked and her books her resting all around her. Pain radiated from her right knee, her palms were skinned and a small line of blood trickled from a cut on the forehead. she murmured a pained 'Ow' as she began to pick herself up. "Cindy, are you okay?" Jimmy's voice grew closer as he ran to her, she looked embarrassed and picked herself up and onto her knees, wavering as she put pressure onto the right one, which she had harshly landed on.

Before she could further lift herself her neighbor and long time frenemy was beside her, arm around her shoulder and assisting her to her feet. He leaned her against the concrete base of the closest street lamp and turned to collect her books for her. "Jimmy?" She whispered still slightly hazed from the fall. Again he was beside her, pulling her arm around his shoulder so she could put her weight on him. He was only about an inch or two taller than her by now. His own acorn hairstyle getting flattened by the rain, but that didn't matter now as he helped her back to his house.

"Thank you Jimmy." Her voice was quiet and hoarse she sounded like she was in pain, which didn't surprise him. Once inside he wrapped a dry towel around her, and sat her on a kitchen bar stool. Taking a look at her injuries, it wasn't much worse than he had assumed, her palms were bleeding ever so lightly and the cut on her forehead had just stopped. After disappearing down the hall, he returned with a first aid kit. The rain continued to pour outside as he tended to her, examining her and getting close to her like he'd always wanted.

With her right leg propped up on another chair, Jimmy gently placed an ice pack over it, she winced slightly and relaxed again. "Can I see your hands please Cindy?" he was gentle as he asked, and she slowly presented the scraped up extremities. Ever so lightly Jimmy took hold of her hands and cleaned them, hydrogen peroxide and a topical cream for the pain, after which he dressed the wounds. Lastly her forehead, a small cut had extended from over her left eyebrow reaching up the the middle of her forehead to just below her hairline. With a cotton ball swabbed in Hydrogen peroxide he cleaned it and presented her with a bandage, waterproof given the current weather conditions. "If you go to the library after school, i'll start taking you home." He offered as he applied the bandage to the skin.

"Huh?" Was the only response she could mutter as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

"I don't want you getting hurt again, so since we both spend the same days at the library i'll take you home in the hovercraft." He gave her a small smile and a look over one last time, as if he was admiring his handy work on her injuries, though it did give him a reason to admire her lovely curves as well. She smile back and accepted his offer, "Okay Jimmy, that sounds good."

Her smile got wider which actually caused her head to fall sharp to pain, and she cringed in response. "ah, Still hurts a little." She replied to assure him it was nothing serious, in the next moment was what caused the chain reaction, a chain reaction that spread over three years. He leaned down, gently next to her head, pressed his lips lighter than a feather to her forehead, and kissed her sweet still damp skin. Slowly he pulled back, surprised by his own actions, but stood straight above her, and with a completely straight face, said "Is that better?" His voice cracking slightly from how nervous he was.

Her eyes were wide and her face red in a blush, heart beating and mind racing. "Yeah, that's... much better." in all honestly it was, she felt calmer and her muscles relaxed, causing the pain to go away. But a million thoughts were going through her head. This was the first time in 2 months Jimmy and her were getting along, other than this they bickered and argued every day, and now here they were he was treating her wounds, being sweet, he just kissed her forehead!? "Good, let's get you home for some rest."

"Okay." she weakly squeaked out, and he helped her to her feet again, mostly putting all her weight on Jimmy and the rest on her good foot. And he walked her home, letting her up the stairs and helping her to her room. She urged him to go home, that she needed to change and go to bed, and he couldn't really help with that. He smiled and told her he'd see her at school the next day, and he'd take her home from the library when they were there next. Cindy nodded in a agreement and grinned back at him, and with that he vanished out her bedroom door, leaving her only with a "Sweet dreams Vortex."


	2. Chapter 2 A Permanent friend

**_Let me know what you guys think, all of my early chapters have been pre-written, when I was younger, but i didn't wanna change the story. Review and tell me what you think!_**

"Sweet dreams Vortex." And he was gone.

The next day, thursday, Cindy normally had Karate, but the instructor was out of town for a tournament, So she and Libby were going Shopping. Over the past few years Libby had really worked on her own style of music, and made a little bit of money putting her own songs on Itunes, for support everyone in Retroville bought it, but it really took off in surrounding towns. She was still a bit on the shorter side, but she let her hair grow out a bit, she always kept it in a tight stylish braid. Her makeup was always light and natural looking, and she chose to switch to a more modern complimentary style, with skinny jeans, cute skirts, and plenty of accessories.

Cindy and Libby had no morning classes together, but after lunch they had all but one class together, so when lunch time rolled around Cindy couldn't be more excited, she caught up with Libby by her locker. "Libby, we need to talk!" She limped up with a big smile on her face to her long time best friend,

"What happened to your knee, Cindy?" Libby flipped her wrist like she always did.

"That's what i need to tell you!" cindy grabbed her best friend's arm and linked them, walking down the halls toward the cafeteria, and she began to explain. She kept her voice quiet, or at least tried, but it was difficult to contain her enthusiasm. "Girl, this is the first time i've seen you this happy in along time." her head bobbed a bit and she raised an eyebrow in wonder at her blonde best friend. "I wonder why that is?" She implied ever so... obviously, Cindy blushed at her unspoken accusation. They strolled through the lunch line taking trays of traditional pizza and canned vegetable highschool provision.

They seated themselves alone at far table to the left, opposite the double entrance doors. like any high school girls they giggled and gabbed about boys, mostly Jimmy, but also any guy Libby found cute, the whole her and Sheen thing hadn't really worked out, which left the odd ball heartbroken. "I wonder what's gonna happen with you two now." Libby began as she stabbed a crinkle cut carrot and debated if she should really eat it. "But this kind of thing has happened before right? When you were-" She stopped talking as another person appeared next to Cindy, dropping a similar food tray and seating himself beside her. Jimmy, followed by none other than Carl, and Sheen.

"Hello ladies." Jimmy tried to be smooth and charming with his words but a came out a little more cheesy than charming. Still, Cindy smiled and turned her head away so he couldn't see her blush. Libby exchanged greetings as did Carl, but Sheen stayed quiet. Trying to forget the heartbreak that had been plaguing him for months. "Cindy, how are you feeling?" The big headed genius asked, referring to her previous injury, but would take any answer.

"Still a limp, but nothing really hurts." A small smile still on her lips.

"I'd offer you my latest invention which i'm hoping could speed the healing process by speeding up certain systems in the body, however when i tested it, it seemed to speed up all systems in the body, the side effects were less than satisfactory. See while it does speed the healing process, it led to increased heart rate and metabolism, as well as increased rate of aging. See I can't exactly seem to isolate just a single system within the body that would lead to pleasing results, so at the moment-."

The long monolog you normally hear from Jimmy about his inventions had Libby rolling her eyes, "Speed up the speech Jimmy." She insisted slightly annoyed.

"You'd be in perfect health, but would die from old age within days... It's still in testing." He shrugged his shoulders as if were nothing and the table fell slightly silent, unsure of where to turn the conversation next. It didn't really matter, the lunch bell rang seconds later, causing everyone to slowly rise from their seats. Cindy, Libby, Jimmy, and Carl had study hall, Sheen had American studies.

Within the quiet of the study hall room, they separated to their designated tables, Cindy closest to the door had no view of any of her friends, the table behind her facing the other direction was Libby, who could see Jimmy and Carl at adjacent tables on the far end of the room. She pulled out a magazine and crossed her legs, but eyed Jimmy from the top of her 'Style Now'. A teen fashion magazine on which she one day hoped to be on the cover of. He had out a blueprint book in which she could only imagine the designs he was drawing right now.

He seemed focused on his work, pencil scribbling across the paper which a quickness. He didn't slow or waverly, but suddenly stopped, in the near silence Libby could hear the genius sigh and drop his pencil, he darted his eyes up, looking past libby and behind her, she knew he was getting the best glance at Cindy that he could, but where she was sitting it was merely the back of her head. His eyes glanced over to Libby, and when he saw she was staring back at him he shot them back down at his blueprints and began sketching again, completely aware that he'd been caught staring at Cindy by her best friend.

The supervising teacher Mr. Dinger dropped his newspaper to his desk and stood, stuffing his hand into the pocket of his tan slacks, and grasped a few quarters. Like everyday in study hall he left the room and headed down the hall toward the cafeteria, where he would spend 5 minutes debating between Krispy Flakes, and chocolate covered peanuts. If it was a good day, he'd get peanuts, if it was a bad day he'd get Krispy Flakes. Jimmy had discovered this when he used Mr. Dinger as a guinea pig for his study on human behaviour.

Now was her chance, Libby dropped her magazine and jumped from her chair, reseating herself across Jimmy, he looked up startled. "Look Jimmy." She started softly, almost sympathetic. "I don't know what's going on with you and Cin' or what's going to happen with you and her..." She thought for a moment so she could choose her words carefully, "But she's going through some stuff right now. And this whole thing that happened between you two has her happier then i've seen her in months."

Jimmy almost smiled at her words, but she cut him off before it could fully stretch across her face. "But if something goes wrong where you two don't work, it could send her to a really bad place. She. is not. well." Libby whispered so her friend across the room couldn't hear, but Carl looked up and shot Jimmy a confused glance, which he replied with a confused face of his own.

What does that even mean? She isn't well? How could that be? Cindy had fantastic grades, a best friend and he saw her smile almost everyday, what was he missing? "Look, she doesn't show it, she fakes it everyday, but i'm her best friend and I know her, something is very wrong and she won't talk to me. she's been pushing me away. Right now she doesn't need a flirty romantic interest or even a boyfriend. She needs a friend, someone she will talk to, someone who can help her." She sounded seriously, but still kept her voice low, you could tell that it hurt talking about how she was losing Cindy. They had been best friends for so long so to hear that Cindy was making Distance was shocking.

"I know this sounds harsh, but you need to let the dream of you and Cindy together fly. She needs a stable permanent relationship, not a romantic one, a friendship. Someone who can keep her safe. I need that to be you Jimmy." With that she was gone, back to her seat before Jimmy could respond. He slumped back in his chair, thinking about what was just forced into his ears. Let the dream of him and Cindy fly. What kind of danger was Cindy in? And who was Libby to say Jimmy couldn't try to date Cindy. then again, that was her best friend, who had a better idea of what was going on with her than Jimmy, who had just started talking to her for the first time in months yesterday.


End file.
